


Emergency Care

by Aeremaee



Series: DCTV Stories [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hospitals, Snowellsweek2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 14:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7271896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeremaee/pseuds/Aeremaee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After she escapes Zoom, Caitlin doesn't come to the lab but goes straight to a hospital to get the care she needs. 'Dr Harrison Wells' is still listed as her emergency contact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emergency Care

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Snowellsweek 2016, for the Day 2 prompt Fake/Pretend Relationship.

They rushed into the hospital a lot more wildly than was probably excusable, but they really didn’t care. She’d gotten away, and she’d made it to a hospital. The question of how would have to wait. Right now the only question was _how bad is it_?

The only reason they’d even found out was because Wells was listed as Caitlin’s emergency contact still – the smartphone Eobard Thawne had been using suddenly ringing shrilly in a drawer in the back of Cisco’s lab – and none of them had really considered what they were going to do when they got there. They just rushed up to the information desk and crowded over the raised counter to try and get the nurse’s attention.

She was on the telephone. It felt like she was on the telephone for _ages._

“Are they even going to let us see her?” Barry hissed.

“At this point I’m not sure they’ll even tell us what’s going on,” Cisco muttered miserably. “Maybe if Joe and his badge were here.”

“I texted him from the car, he’ll be here when he can. Iris, too,” Barry said, “but it might be a while.”

Cisco stared at Harry for a moment, who was intently focused on the telephone receiver.

“Hang on,” he whispered, and Barry didn’t really trust the gleam in his eyes. He started typing into his phone furiously. Barry looked from Cisco’s quick fingers to Harry who looked ready to rip the receiver out of the nurse’s hand and decided he’d better be ready to use his superspeedy reflexes.

Finally, finally, finally the nurse hung up, and thankfully didn’t antagonise Harry any further but turned to them right away.

“How can I help you?”

“We’re here to see Caitlin Snow,” Harry said, “I received a call from you twenty three minutes ago that she had checked herself in here. What is her condition?”

“You’re her emergency contact?”

“Yes, Harrison Wells.”

She checked her records.

“Much as I appreciate that you are listed as her emergency contact, I can’t give you more information than you got over the phone if you aren’t next of kin, and the doctor hasn’t cleared her for visitors yet. I can only tell you that she is not in the ICU or in surgery, but in regular care.”

Cisco slid his phone across the raised counter to where Harry was standing. Wells threw it a quick glance and then said, utterly serious, “I’m her husband.” Barry had a coughing fit and Cisco hissed _Felicity_ in between two coughs.

The nurse checked her computer again. “I’m sorry, sir, but according to her ID information she’s not married,” she said sternly, squaring up to protect her patient.

“It’s pretty recent,” Harry said, turning on the charm with his _aww shucks ma’am_ smile. “Maybe it’s not been updated in the system?”

She looked sceptical at that but humoured him and refreshed Caitlin’s record – and there it was.

“I’m so sorry, mister Wells, of course you can go and see your wife. But I’m afraid your two?..”

“Co-workers,” Harry said smoothly.

“…co-workers will have to wait here until the doctor clears her. I don’t think that will be very much longer but she might have to stay overnight for observation.”

She gave him a note with the route and room numbers.

“Thank you,” Harry said, and didn’t even turn back to Barry and Cisco before he ran off. They watched him go solemnly.

“This might have been an even better idea than I originally thought,” Cisco said mildly.

*

Wells barged into the room without even thinking about it. Caitlin was on the bed, her face grey, wet hair pulled back into a messy, half loose bun, bruises all along her arms and lower legs, IV taped to her hand. The nurse in the room stepped forward to block his way and the doctor looked up from where she was stitching up Caitlin’s arm to give him a very unimpressed glare.

“And you are?” she snarled.

“I’m her husband!” Wells replied, with all the righteous indignation he was able to summon.

“Oh, I wish,” Caitlin snorted. The doctor looked back at her with a small grin.

“Took his time about asking you, did he?”

Caitlin giggled like she was a teenage girl confronted with her celebrity crush.

“Dr Wells is my hero,” she said in a low tone, as if she was confiding a secret, “he’s so handsome.”

Wells was struck dumb. The doctor and the nurse both smiled at him.

“Don’t worry, she’s just fine,” the nurse said, waving him farther into the room.

“We gave her a sedative to help with the stress of what she’s been through,” the doctor said kindly, “but she’s dehydrated and malnourished and it hit her pretty hard, didn’t it, love?”

Caitling giggled some more. “Is this what being high feels like?” she asked.

Wells’ legs moved him forward to drop down on the bed next to Caitlin as if he weighed a ton. He wrapped an arm awkwardly around her waist and pulled her into him without jostling her arm. She snuggled into him a little more, head cradled on his shoulder.

“Of course you wouldn’t know how that feels,” he said, as light-hearted as he could manage. “Are you warm enough, Caitlin?”

She looked up at him with wonder in her eyes, and he realised this was the first time he’d used her first name.

Her eyes started filling with tears then, and she dropped her head back on his shoulder and began to bawl, as uninhibited as any child would.

“Oh sweetheart,” he breathed, “you’re safe now. It’s over. We’re all here for you, Barry and Cisco too, downstairs. Oh, Caity, why didn’t you come home when you got away?”

“I hurt my arm,” she said, gesturing vaguely with the other arm, “when I climbed out the window.” She slurred her words and she was hiccupping. He started rocking her slowly.

“It was very smart of you to come here straight away, Caitlin,” the doctor said, finishing up the last stitch and gently covering the wound. “There you go, love, all done.”

She pulled her arm in so she could burrow further into Well’s chest.

“I don’t remember when we got married,” she suddenly blurted out, and then started wailing again. “And I don’t even have my wedding ring!”

Wells rubbed circles into her back and quietly reflected on how Caitlin’s acting had never been this convincing when she was sober.

“You weren’t wearing it, sweetheart,” he said, “it’s too dangerous to wear it to the lab for work, remember? They’re at home, by the wedding photo on the mantelpiece.”

She calmed down a little, snuffling her way through an ‘ok’. Cisco was _so_ going to get it when they were out of here.

“Don’t worry, love,” the doctor added, “it’s just the drugs. You’ll feel a lot better in the morning and your memory will sort itself out soon, too. You’ve been through an ordeal but you’re going to be all right, ok? The police might still stop by to ask you some questions, later.”

“Detective West is on his way over with Iris,” Wells supplied.

“I like Iris,” Caitlin sniffled.

The nurse handed him a glass of water for her with a small ‘isn’t she adorable’ smile and he smiled awkwardly back.

“You just lie back,” she said, pulling back the sheets of the bed, “and your husband can stay here with you all night, too, don’t you fret.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow morning to check up on you, and we’ll see about your other visitors then” the doctor said. “For now just rest, and the nurse will bring you some food when you feel up to it.”

“Just give us a ring, here,” the nurse added, pointing out the call button.

“Let’s get you settled in,” Wells said, standing so he could help her, but she clutched his shirt in her trembling fingers and he couldn’t go far. The nurse stepped in and together they got her settled into the pillows and covered up.

“Thank you,” Wells told her.

“You know where to find me,” she said, and the women left the room.

He pulled out his phone to update the boys and hovered around her bed a little, fluffing pillows that didn’t need fluffing and pulling on covers that were already fine.

“I’m cold,” Caitlin said, sounding small and sad. What choice did he possibly have?

“Scoot over,” he said, and took off his shoes and jacket.

There was just enough room for the both of them, her with her head pillowed on his chest and their legs tangled up. They’d let her shower and her hair didn’t smell like it usually did, but she smelled like herself still, some undefinable scent that made him feel calmer, somehow.

“This is great,” Caitlin mumbled, at the edge of asleep. “I’m so glad you’re my husband. I love you a lot. Just you. I bet you must worry about that sometimes but it’s not because he had your face. I just really love _you_.”

He pulled her as close to him as he could without jostling the IV or putting pressure on her stitches. He felt he owed her a million apologies for this whole thing and he wasn’t sure if she’d even let him, come morning.

“I love you, very much, too,” he confessed in a whisper when her breathing had evened out and he was sure she was asleep. “We’ll see what we’re going to do about that ring in the morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](%E2%80%9Daeremaee.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D)


End file.
